


all I want

by kirargent



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e03 Dreamcatchers, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Minor Character Death, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirargent/pseuds/kirargent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something about her name in Kira’s mouth, about Kira being kind to her, makes Malia feel a sharp, splintery <i>crack</i> inside her chest. She wants to cry, but that would be stupid, so she doesn’t. “I still wish I could’ve saved her,” she says numbly.</p><p>“I know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	all I want

**Author's Note:**

> canon is gonna smash this to pieces in just a few days but oh well

“Liam’s home,” Stiles says, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Mason’s gonna stay the night at his house.”

“That’s good,” Scott says.

“Do you think they’ll go after him?” Malia demands. “Those masked...” She stops. She doesn’t know what to call them. “...Things?”

Scott opens his mouth, then pauses. His face falls a little; Malia thinks he must be coming to terms with the fact that he can’t tell them  _it’ll all be okay_  without rendering himself a big fat liar. “I have no idea,” he admits, looking more beaten than usual.

She doesn’t like watching Scott when he looks like this.

Standing near Lydia, who’s pale and propped against the wall but upright, Malia watches Kira begin to fidget as uneasy silence infiltrates the basement.

“Do you think your mom will be okay?” Stiles asks Lydia eventually. His fingers drum out a helter-skelter rhythm against his legs. He’s coping with the tension even more poorly than Kira.

“Well,” Lydia says, her mouth curling into a sour-sweet smile, “considering that she just watched me get sliced open and Kira grow a flaming suit of kitsune aura armor, I’d guess she’ll be a little shaken up.” Though she’s standing only with the aid of the wall and her eyes are ringed with gray, her sarcastic expression is still wickedly sharp. Stiles lifts his hands, fingers spread:  _I surrender, sorry for asking_.

Malia raises her eyebrows and looks to Kira. "You grew flaming armor?” she says.

There’s a deadening weight of solemnity in the basement that stops Kira from doing more than giving Malia the little wincy smile-shrug she does when she’s embarrassed by the attention, but the somber mood isn’t enough to totally dull the warm spark in Malia’s chest and the small voice in her head that goes  _God, she’s so cute_. Malia suspects she might be a terrible person for thinking about how cute Kira Yukimura is in the middle of the current situation.

Her mouth twists a little and she thinks,  _Whatever_.

“Tracy said ‘they’re coming for all of us,’ right? So, doesn’t that mean... _all_  of us?”

“I don’t know, Malia,” Scott repeats. He rubs a hand down his face. He looks and sounds very tired.

Kira says, “Well, what else are we gonna do about it tonight?” She looks around: to each of her friends, and then beyond to the empty basement. Whatever or whoever those things were, they didn’t leave Tracy’s body. Kira’s eyes are big and dark in her pale face. “Shouldn’t we go home and get some sleep?”

“It’s not like we have any leads to follow,” Malia admits, though she wishes she had something to slam and hurl and claw. “I couldn’t catch a scent on those things.”

“Get some sleep? Are you kidding me?” Stiles says. His voice is going a little shrill and his eyes are starting to get buggy.

“Well, what do you propose we do?” Lydia asks him, blinking sweetly.

There’s some wild hand-flailing. A few disjointed noises.

No actual answer.

Malia nods crisply. “Sleep sounds good,” she says decisively. “I’m going home.”

“Wait!” Kira blurts. When Malia looks at her, she’s bitten her lip like she didn’t mean to speak. Her eyes are very wide. After a moment of being stared at, she gives another smile-wince. “It’s just...will you be safe? I mean, should we stick together? Wouldn’t we be safer?” Her eyes dart around the group.

Hands still drumming, Stiles bobs his head side to side as he thinks. “I’ve gotta get my dad home, but I could head over to Scott’s after that.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Scott tells him. Another hand-flap from Stiles, this time dismissive, settles the matter.

Kira looks to Lydia.

“Oh, no,” Lydia says. “After all that supernatural crazy? I’m going home to my probably-very-freaked-out mother, and none of you are coming with me.”

No one argues with her.

Kira’s eyes fall on Malia. Malia blinks. “Uhh,” she says.

Face hopeful, Kira says, “I can tell my parents the truth, and we can tell your dad we’re helping each other study.”

Malia lets out a breath, careful not to let it shake. She wants Kira to come home with her more than she cares to admit. Like, way more. She pretty much always wants to spend more time with Kira, but after the night she’s had so far...

Looking at Kira’s slight smile, Malia allows the smile that’s pulling on her own cheeks to fully form. “Sure,” she says slowly. “I don’t mind having a fire-armored body guard.”

Kira blinks, pink creeping up her neck, and ducks her head. Malia’s grin gets wider.

Malia hesitates a second, then adds, “But, hey, uh. Will you drive?”

A derisive snort comes from Lydia, but Malia ignores her, because Kira’s smiling at her, dimply and dark-eyed and the only thing Malia wants to see after the other shit she’s watched tonight. “Sure,” Kira says easily, and Malia loves her for it.

 

* * *

 

Malia remembers that she once told Kira she’d leave her behind if there was danger. She doesn’t regret saying it. She didn’t survive as a coyote by being stupid and sentimental—she survived by being smart and self-preserving. Yet still, Malia sits on the edge of her bed watching Kira make a range of comedically aggrieved faces as she removes her bra from under her shirt, and she knows with certainty that more than being comforted that Kira’s here to protect her, the reason she can relax is that Kira’s here, within sight—that  _Malia_  can protect  _her_.

Kira crams her bra—which is dark gray and lacy, Malia notes—into her backpack and wiggles down into her borrowed sleeping bag with a sigh. Her whole face goes faintly pink when she realizes Malia’s been watching her, but she doesn’t say anything. Malia half wishes she would. She wants to pick a fight, or maybe cry into someone’s shoulder, or maybe just talk about something other than the awful day she’s had.

Like, what good is it trying to save people if you can’t help them anyway? If they’d just put Tracy down earlier like Malia had suggested, she wouldn’t be feeling like such a failure right now.

Pressing her lips together to make sure they’re not giving away any emotion, Malia wraps her arms around herself and falls backward onto her mattress. She stares at the white ceiling of her bedroom. White ceiling, white walls. Lydia helped her put up a big mirror next to the door, and she stole some Scotch tape from the kitchen to stick up the first Algebra exam she actually passed, but other than that, the decoration is minimal. She doesn’t much like spending time in her room, if she’s being honest. She doesn’t even really care to sleep in here unless Lydia or Kira is camped out on the floor next to her. Too quiet, too cold, too lonely.

“Hey, um. Malia?” Kira’s voice is hesitant, thoughtful.

With a burst of effort, Malia pulls her tired body back up to sitting. She leans her elbows on her knees, tilting her head at Kira. “Yeah?”

Kira bites her lip. Her eyes, narrowed like she’s trying to wrestle her thoughts into coherent patterns, are not on Malia, but on a blank patch of wood floor in the middle distance. “When you...shift.”

Malia’s body tightens.  _I got control of myself_ , she wants to say.  _I stopped myself before I killed Tracy_. She bites her tongue and waits for Kira to finish.

Kira’s brow is furrowed. “Scott said it has to do with his heart rate going up. So, can it—does it usually happen when you’re...angry?” She looks up at Malia finally, eyes wide underneath her raised eyebrows. There’s a crease in her forehead that makes her look remarkably vulnerable for someone as powerful as Malia knows she is.

“Um,” Malia says. She thinks for a second, then nods. “Yeah, it’s usually anger.” She frowns, narrowing her eyes. “Why?”  _I’ve learned how to control it_ , she wants to say again.  _I didn’t kill Tracy. I didn’t kill Tracy_. But Tracy’s dead anyway, so does that even matter?

“I just...wondered.” Kira says. She picks at the hem of the t-shirt she’s wearing, a soft, loose white one that belongs to Malia. Abruptly, she blows out a breath. “Okay, I wasn’t just wondering. I wanted to know because—” she frowns “—because when Tracy cut Lydia, I was—mad. And then I was fighting her and I just kept thinking that all Lydia had been doing the past couple days was try to  _help_  her, and...” Kira shakes her head, biting her lip again. “And I know she was just scared and she didn’t mean to do any of it, so I didn’t  _want_  to hurt her, but...I also did. I did want to.” Kira looks scared. “But I didn’t. I don’t know. I was just—mad, all of a sudden, and that was all I could think about. Being mad at her.”

She looks just like Tracy did. Scared, confused.  _What’s happening to me?_  Malia feels a sick rush of relief. Kind, perfect Kira Yukimura is having trouble with her control just like Malia did. The relief is gone in the next second; Malia’s disgusted with herself that she was glad about Kira’s struggle for even that long.

Moving without thinking about it much, Malia lowers herself from her bed to the floor and makes her way to Kira on her knees. Kira looks at her, faintly curious. She’s soft and big-eyed and she looks very cozy in Malia’s comfy t-shirt. Silently, Malia sits herself behind Kira, coiling arms around her stomach and draping her chin over Kira’s shoulder, knees bent to either side. Kira is warm against her chest, her neck, her chin, her arms.

“What—?” Kira starts, but Malia shakes her head.

“I’m still not good enough with the whole ‘words’ thing to say what I want to,” Malia explains. “But—I get it, okay? It’s the same thing when I change. I get angry, and I want to hurt people, even if I know I don’t really want to hurt them.”

Kira relaxes back into her, just a modicum. Pleasure sits warm in Malia’s chest.

“It’s okay,” she says, quieter. “We’ll help you. All of us.”

Against her body, she feels Kira take an uneven breath. “Thanks,” she whispers.

Malia noses at Kira’s soft hair. If Kira wants, later they can pretend this was all just physical comfort after a shitty day. “’Course,” she says. Then, lightly, “Flaming armor though, huh?”

A tiny laugh shakes Kira’s body. “Yeah. Pretty cool, don’t you think?”

“Very cool,” Malia agrees. “I think I might be jealous.”

“Please,” Kira says. She wiggles a bit so that she can look at Malia over her shoulder. Their noses are very close together. “You’re a were- _coyote_. If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is.”

“Flaming armor, that’s what!” Malia says, a grain of indignation in her tone. She’s smiling, though. Her cheeks feel tight.

Kira’s chest moves with her slight laugh. Her grin freezes, fades a little; her dark eyes are very, very intent on Malia. Malia’s breath gets stuck halfway into her lungs and hangs there, waiting.

Kira opens her mouth a little. Malia thinks they’re going to kiss, but then Kira says, gently, “You did the right thing, you know. Trying to help Tracy.”

Malia’s body locks up. She scrambles back, feeling cold as soon as she’s away from Kira, scooting backward to lean against her bed.

Kira looks crestfallen. Malia feels a pang of guilt, but all she says is, “She died anyway. I couldn’t help her.” Her voice sounds hollow.

“You tried,” Kira says. “What happened after that wasn’t your fault.”

Malia shrugs, looking away. She stares at one of her lonely white bedroom walls. “Trying didn’t make her not dead.”

“I know,” Kira says. She sounds sad. Malia doesn’t look at her. Then, hesitant: “Trying didn’t make her not dead, but it makes you not bad. You did the right thing, Malia.”

Something about her name in Kira’s mouth, about Kira being kind to her, makes Malia feel a sharp, splintery  _crack_  inside her chest. She wants to cry, but that would be stupid, so she doesn’t. “I still wish I could’ve saved her,” she says numbly.

“I know.”

Kira stretches out a hand into the sweep of empty space that Malia’s put between them. Malia doesn’t understand why Kira is reaching out to her after she pulled away.

She takes Kira’s hand anyway.

Kira gives her a fragile smile. Slowly, body tired, Malia pushes herself closer to Kira with her free hand. She eases herself to the ground next to Kira’s sleeping bag, waiting for Kira to lay down beside her. They face each other, fingers wrapped together in the space between their bodies.

Malia read once when she was little that otters hold hands while they sleep so they don’t float away from each other. She thinks maybe she and Kira are holding hands so they don’t float away from themselves, not from each other. Her fingers twisted in Kira’s feel tethering, like an anchor.

She thinks Scott said something to her once about anchors, when she was trying to learn control, but she’s too tired to remember properly now. She’ll worry about it tomorrow.

She flexes her fingers and curls them again to grip Kira’s hand a little tighter. Her palm and her fingers are sweaty where their skin touches, but she finds she doesn’t really mind.

“Malia?” Kira says quietly.

Malia nods.

“Will you turn off the light?”

Malia blinks. “Oh.” She untangles her fingers from Kira’s and climbs upright. Fatigue drags at her arms and legs, makes her spine slump. She hits the light switch with her palm and waits a few seconds, blinking as the darkness shifts from complete to discernible shades of blue.

She pads back to Kira and folds herself to the floor again, this time behind Kira so she can drape an arm over her waist and pull her close.

“Is this okay?” she whispers.

Kira nods, and her hair tickles Malia’s nose.

Terrible as the day has been, Malia's glad that it landed her here. She stares at her white bedroom wall, blue with shadows, before she falls asleep, and thinks she doesn’t mind this room so much, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> also [on tumblr](http://kirargent.tumblr.com/post/123663381361/all-i-want-2-4k-malia-kira-emotional)


End file.
